Crook-Catching Cops Credit Cameras; Critic Reconsiders

Police credited city-owned cameras for helping them make two more gunfire-related arrests, the latest in a string of cases that have led at least one surveillance critic to reassess his position.

Top cops described the two latest incidents at a Wednesday press conference at 1 Union Ave. and in an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Independent.

They involved investigations that benefited from footage from some of the 500 surveillance cameras the department has been in the process of installing around town as well as newly license-plate-reading (LPR) cameras.

One incident occurred at the Seven Haven grocery on Sylvan Avenue Monday at 3:40 p.m.. A man entered the store, showed a gun, demanded money. He grabbed cash from the register. The clerk ​“struggled” with him, according to Police Chief Karl Jacobson; the gunman fire a shot in the air, broke free, fled the scene in a black Chevy Malibu.

Police responded fast. They learned the Chevy Malibu was also used in a recent West Haven robbery. They viewed in-store video, saw the suspect was the same person believed responsible for the West Haven incident.

That’s when the department’s new license plate readers helped. One such reader captured the license plate marker of the fleeing Malibu. Another captured the license plate of the Malibu as it exited the highway.

That info enabled police to catch up with the gunman, fast. They found him in Milford within 40 minutes of the incidents and arrested him, Jacobson said: ​“He was on the beach getting his hair braided.” The arrestee, who was born in 1999, has been charged with six felony and two misdemeanor robbery, weapons, and larceny-related offenses and is being held on $500,000 bond for this case. Another $320,000 bond was set in connection with three unrelated outstanding warrants.

The second recent arrest was related to a shooting that occurred on Winchester Avenue at 11:20 p.m. back on March 4.

An alleged drug dealer known as ​“Country” was sitting inside a silver Volvo parked near International Package Store when a man approached him demanding a ​“fair fight” in the wake of a drunken fight from a year earlier, according to an arrest warrant affidavit written by Detective Jessica Stone. Country stayed in the car. A shot was fired from inside the car. The victim in the street was hit in the abdomen and left arm. Country drove off.

Police immediately had surveillance video showing the silver Volvo, with black trim hanging from it and a missing gas cap, parked on Winchester. Separate surveillance video showed a driver doing a U‑turn at the time of the shooting, the victim yelling at the driver, then a gunshot being fired. An eyewitness later confirmed what was captured on the video.

During the investigation, detectives obtained separate license plate reader footage showing the Volvo parked by the package store. Other footage shows the same car with the same marker and the black trim hanging off at the location on two separate occasions in days prior. Police used an advanced vehicle recognition system called Rekor to more accurately identify the vehicle based on the plate, the missing gas cap, and the hanging black trim.

The victim, whose injuries were severe enough to land him in the hospital intensive care unit, at first was reluctant to speak with cops. Detective Kealyn Nivakoff returned with still footage from the surveillance camera, and the victim offered more details.

Police traced the car to a 35-year-old man they recently arrested on assault and weapons charges. Using other newly obtained technology, they were able to trace the 10 millimeter shell casing at the scene to a gun used in another shooting earlier this year; detectives are following up on that lead as well.

Velleca: I’m Sold

These cases follow a series of other arrests made by New Haven police, including some of the nine homicide case arrests so far this year, in which the new cameras played a key role.

In no cases was the camera footage the main piece of evidence. Rather, it helped police zero in on suspects, find them faster, and obtain other important physical or eyewitness evidence.

All that has caused retired New Haven Assistant Police Chief John Velleca to reconsider his public criticism of the city’s camera-buying plan.

Velleca, who teaches criminal justice at Albertus Magnus College, previously criticized the decision to place 1,500 of the cameras around town during this December appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. He suggested that the cameras would violate people’s privacy without meaningfully helping police solve crimes.

Then came the homicide arrests.

When Velleca returned Tuesday to the ​“Dateline” program, where he serves as resident criminal justice expert, he had a Come to Jesus moment.

“I stand corrected,” he proclaimed. ​“Completely 100 percent.”

He said his fears didn’t seem to have materialized about cops using video as a shortcut around collecting hard evidence needed to build solid cases and catch the right people. And the record is showing a string of solid-sounding arrests in which video played on important, not the central, role, along with old-fashioned shoe leather techniques.

“Our goal is to ake out of the community people who are committing bad acts, killing people, hurting people,” Velleca said. ​“These cameras look as if they’re collaborating a lot of events. They’re lending supportive evidence.”

“If the tradeoff is worth it, then the invasion’s worth it. That’s how you have to weigh everything with civil liberties.”

Velleca singled out Assistant Chief Bertram Ettienne, who oversees the detective division’s homicide investigations. Ettienne is working with fewer detectives than Velleca had when he held a similar role more than a decade ago.

“I think he’s got that job down pat. I think he’s doing a good job,” Velleca said. ​“A lot of things he’s doing better at his tenure and age than I wish I did. I think he’s savvy. I think he knows when to step back rather than be a bull in the china shop as I was at times” when not ​“get[ting] your way with the state’s attorney” or ​“marching down to the chief” when not immediately getting resources needed for an investigation. Ettienne stays out of the limelight and remains patient, Velleca said.

Click on the video above in this story to watch the full interview WNHH FM ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Velleca, in which he also discussed the nationwide challenges of combatting the ​“normalization” of gun violence and use of AR-15 style weapons in mass shootings. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of ​“Dateline.”